Anti-Semite Launched Obama Smears

OCTOBER 14--The Chicago man credited with launching the Barack Obama-is-a-Muslim smear campaign once pledged to "exterminate Jew Power in America," and claimed that "Jew babies are fed with subsidized American taxpayer money," and that Jews were "schooled in blood sucking and money grubbing from birth."

Those anti-Semitic statements (and many, many others) were contained in a 1986 fundraising letter circulated by Andy Martin, then a Connecticut congressional candidate. Martin, who began his whisper campaign against Obama in August 2004 after the politician's keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, has a long history of impugning Jews, often in connection with the hundreds of legal proceedings filed by the 62-year-old perennial candidate.

But the 1986 letter, a copy of which you'll find here, is particularly virulent. In fact, in 1996, when Republican officials in Florida learned of Martin's prior fundraising pitch they rescinded the party's support for Martin, then a state senate candidate (when he ran for Congress in 1986, Martin was known as Anthony R. Martin-Trigona).

Martin's sleazy background has gained renewed attention in light of his appearance this month in a Sean Hannity-hosted Fox News documentary about Obama. During that October 5 program, Martin claimed that the Democratic presidential candidate was once "in training for radical overthrow of the government." Martin offered no proof for this claim, nor was any sought by Hannity, who identified Martin as an "Internet journalist."

Nor did Fox mention the kooky Martin's history of anti-Semitic statements or his arrest record (click here to view five of his mug shots).

In fact, Martin is wanted in New York and Florida on outstanding arrest warrants. The New York warrant, out of Ulster County, resulted from harassment charges related to a child custody battle. The Florida warrant, from Palm Beach County, was filed in connection with a criminal contempt conviction. (4 pages)